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| O SONS of men, that toil, and love with tears! | |
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| Know ye, O sons of men, the maid who dwells | |
| Between the two seas at the Dardanelles? | |
| Her face hath charm’d away the change of years, | |
| And all the world is filled with her spells. | 5 |
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| No task is hers forever, but the play | |
| Of setting forth her beauty day by day: | |
| There in your midst, O sons of men that toil, | |
| She laughs the long eternity away. | |
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| The chains about her neck are manypearl’d, | 10 |
| Rare gems are those round which her hair is curl’d; | |
| She hath all flesh for captive, and for spoil, | |
| The fruit of all the labor of the world. | |
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| She getteth up and maketh herself bare, | |
| And letteth down the wonder of her hair | 15 |
| Before the sun; the heavy golden locks | |
| Fall in the hollow of her shoulders fair. | |
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| She taketh from the lands, as she may please, | |
| All jewels, and all corals from the seas; | |
| She layeth them in rows upon the rocks; | 20 |
| Laugheth, and bringeth fairer ones than these. | |
| |
| Five are the goodly necklaces that deck | |
| The place between her bosom and her neck; | |
| She passeth many a bracelet o’er her hands; | |
| And, seeing she is white without a fleck, | 25 |
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| And seeing she is fairer than the tide, | |
| And of a beauty no man can abide, | |
| Proudly she standeth as a goddess stands, | |
| And mocketh at the sun and sea for pride: | |
| |
| And to the sea she saith: “O silver sea, | 30 |
| Fair art thou, but thou art not fair like me; | |
| Open thy white-tooth’d, dimpled mouths and try; | |
| They laugh not the soft way I laugh at thee.” | |
| |
| And to the sun she saith: “O golden sun, | |
| Fierce is thy burning till the day is done! | 35 |
| But thou shalt burn mere grass and leaves, while I | |
| Shall burn the hearts of men up every one.” | |
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| O fair and dreadful is the maid who dwells | |
| Between the two seas at the Dardanelles,— | |
| As fair and dread as in the ancient years; | 40 |
| And still the world is filled with her spells. | |
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| O sons of men, that toil, and love with tears! | |
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